Cloudera joins AI-RAN Alliance to boost telecom AI networks

Cloudera has joined the AI-RAN Alliance, a consortium of telecom and artificial intelligence companies working towards integrating AI with next-generation telecommunications infrastructure.

The AI-RAN Alliance includes companies such as Dell, NVIDIA, SoftBank, and T-Mobile, and focuses on embedding AI into telecommunications systems with a particular emphasis on radio access networks (RAN). The group aims to address challenges such as standardising AI integration, enabling shared AI infrastructure, and developing applications that support the evolution of telecom networks.

Telecommunications companies worldwide are increasingly exploring virtualisation and modern infrastructures to optimise network operations and reduce costs. By incorporating AI, these providers seek to enhance network service efficiency and open new avenues for service innovation. However, deploying AI at scale in distributed edge environments and across radio access networks presents a range of technical and operational complexities.

Cloudera's addition to the consortium is intended to bolster efforts to manage real-time data, advance edge AI capabilities, and develop hybrid machine learning operations (MLOps) throughout telecom environments. The company brings experience in managing data across hybrid and mixed infrastructure, which the alliance hopes will advance real-time data utilization and edge-to-core orchestration.

Within the alliance, Cloudera will participate in the 'Data for AI-RAN' working group. This initiative aims to develop standardised data orchestration frameworks, facilitate automation of network operations using large language models, and implement hybrid-enabled MLOps across telecom and AI workloads. Cloudera's expertise is expected to help align data and AI workflows with the operational requirements of telecom providers and to promote quicker innovation and deployment of AI-native solutions.

The company will also contribute to the alliance's three main objectives: AI-for-RAN, AI-and-RAN, and AI-on-RAN. These aims relate to applying AI directly to RAN operations, integrating AI with RAN functions, and deploying AI applications on RAN platforms, respectively. As part of its role, Cloudera plans to help create reference architectures, validate them in live network environments, and encourage model reuse among consortium members.

Cloudera's technology will be used to demonstrate real-time decision-making capabilities at the network edge. This includes providing support for scalable preparation of training data, facilitating MLOps, and operationalising AI inference while maintaining governance, visibility, and coordinated orchestration from network edge to core.

Abhas Ricky, Chief Strategy Officer at Cloudera, said, "Cloudera is proud to bring its data and AI expertise to the AI-RAN Alliance. The network is the heart of the telecom business, both in driving margin growth and in service transformation, and AI can unlock substantial value across those dimensions. Given our leadership in the domain - having powered data and AI automation strategies for hundreds of telecommunications providers around the world, we now look forward to accelerating innovation alongside fellow AI-RAN Alliance members, and bringing our customers along. Our goal is to help define the data standards, orchestration models, and reference architectures that will power intelligent, adaptive, and AI-native networks of the future."

Jemin Chung, Vice President Network Strategy at KT, commented, "We are proud to collaborate with Cloudera and fellow AI-RAN Alliance members in the 'Data for AI-RAN' working group. As AI becomes increasingly central to next-generation networks, the ability to harness data securely and at scale will be a key differentiator. Through this initiative, we look forward to defining best practices that enable AI-centric RAN evolution and improve operational intelligence."

Dr. Alex Jinsung Choi, Principal Fellow, SoftBank's Research Institute of Advanced Technology and Chair of the AI-RAN Alliance, said, "Cloudera is an incredible addition to the AI-RAN Alliance, which has grown rapidly as demand for improved AI access and success increases across the industry. The company's leadership in data and AI, combined with their extensive telecommunications footprint, will play a vital role in advancing our shared vision of intelligent, AI-native networks."